A New Religious America: How a ''Christian Country'' Has by Diana L. Eck

Why figuring out America's non secular panorama Is crucial problem dealing with Us this day The Nineties observed the U.S. army fee its first Muslim chaplain and open its first mosque.There are almost immediately greater than 300 temples in l. a., domestic to the best number of Buddhists within the world.There are extra American Muslims than there are American Episcopalians, Jews, or Presbyterians.

Why knowing America's spiritual panorama Is an important problem dealing with Us this day The Nineties observed the U. S. military fee its first Muslim chaplain and open its first mosque. There are shortly greater than 300 temples in la, domestic to the best number of Buddhists on the planet.

The Platform Sutra occupies a crucial position in Zen (Ch'an) Buddhist guideline for college kids and religious seekers all over the world. it's always associated with the center Sutra and The Diamond Sutra to shape a trio of texts which have been respected and studied for hundreds of years. despite the fact that, not like the opposite sutras, which transcribe the lessons of the Buddha himself, The Platform Sutra offers the autobiography of Hui-neng, the debatable sixth Patriarch of Zen, and his knowing of the basics of a non secular and sensible existence.

This publication captures the autobiographical reflections of twenty-eight Christians who have been among those that, within the wake of the second one Vatican Council (1962-65) and tasks of the realm Council of church buildings, devoted their lives to the examine of Islam and to functional Christian-Muslim relatives in new and irenic methods.

Extra resources for A New Religious America: How a ''Christian Country'' Has Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation

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We joined weekend worshipers for the weekly Saturday morning liturgies as the tall granite image of Lord Vishnu was bathed in gallons of milk and royally dressed to receive the offerings of the faithful and dispense his gifts of grace—sanctified fruits and water. The next week we split into teams to visit half a dozen other Hindu communities in the Boston area—from the older Vedanta Society and the Hare Krishna temple to the Swaminarayan temples of Lowell and Stow. One Friday we took the subway down to Quincy, where New England’s first mosque was built in the 1950s in the shadow of the great cranes of the Quincy shipyards.

And what about the immigrant religious histories just now unfolding—the Korean Buddhists and Christians, the Tamil Hindus, the Indian and Pakistani Muslims? Didn’t these also belong in a course on American religion? Other colleagues were on the front lines of the developing fields of multicultural studies or ethnic studies. Reading their works, I was astonished to find a strong normative, ideological secularism that seemed studiously to avoid thinking about religion at all. For them, the religious traditions of America’s ethnic minorities were simply not on the screen.

Massasoit, the chief now memorialized in a statue on Cole’s Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, had befriended the settlers of Plymouth, and this “was perhaps our biggest mistake,” said James. We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. 2 The speech was never delivered, at least at that celebratory 350th event. Rather, on Thanksgiving Day hundreds of Native peoples gathered on Cole’s Hill for the first National Day of Mourning.